Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Christine O'Donnell's campaign is a successful exercise in angry, misfit masturbation, with as little to do with the deadly problems this country faces as some guy wanking in the balcony of a grindhouse has to do with Romeo and Juliet.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

You know, as the mid-term elections draw nearer and the rhetoric on all sides of the political spectrum becomes dumber and dumber I cannot help but think there must be a reason for it all. There has always been a certain level of hysteria right under the surface of American politics. This hysteria erupts from time to time, but it rarely affects the general course of events very greatly. The cold war days of the "red scare' and the cries of "Who lost China?!" might excite the permanently or easily excitable, but they were never really important. The important political work was still getting done no matter how shrill the discourse on the fringes became.

Today, I'm not so sure. Each side holds such ridiculous views of the other side, it becomes difficult to fathom it. One could spend an hour every day going to Memeorandum and reading "opinions" that could only be described as "comically absurd." Yet, these notions are being taken seriously. And, each side feels justified in their own ideas because of the lunacy of how they were depicted by their opposition.

Indeed, the story lines that get trotted out resemble less the well worn patterns of political discourse that make up our shared history, and more the fantastic hyperbole of comic book superheroes. Think about it: Each side views itself as basically noble, though maybe not without its inner conflicts - which are needed to confirm their nobility anyway - while the other is made up of individuals who are nothing but evil, insane, and hell bent on total domination. Etc.

Maybe none of this would have happened if Marvel hadn't started to make all those damn superhero movies.

Wednesday, September 01, 2010

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) decried what he said was a "systematic, conscious" effort by groups to "destroy" President Obama.

Feingold, who's facing a tough reelection effort this fall, blamed coordinated opposition to Obama and the Democratic agenda in Congress for some of the political and electoral woes facing his party this fall.

"A conscious decision was made by certain groups to destroy this presidency the minute it started," Feingold said in a question-and-answer session with The New York Times published Tuesday evening.

That's right. You can never trust groups, particularly certaingroups.

"People say it was the healthcare bill — no, it wasn’t. I go to every county every year and hold a town meeting," he added. "Within days of the president being sworn in, I had people showing up at my town meeting with hats on, with tea bags coming out, saying this is going to be socialism."

OMG! People with tea bags on their head!! How is the President of the United States of America to compete with people with tea bags on their heads!!! Its just so unfair and brutal. *sniff*

And while Feingold did not blame Republicans, he did single out "groups" for having looked to take down Obama, and with him, Democrats in Congress.

"I started coming back and telling my staff and my friends -– way back in spring of '09 -– that something is going on out there that is pretty deadly and pretty harsh even before we had any idea what the healthcare bill was going to be," he said. "There appears to be a systematic, conscious attempt to dismantle this president, so I’m less surprised than other people.”

That's right. Feingold losing his seat in the Senate would be the equivalent of murder perpetrated by those "harsh" and "deadly" groups.